


Slug Love: The Hospital Incident!

by MoonPieDumpling



Category: Naruto
Genre: Bandits! Acid! Snakes! Healthcare workers!, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-03-05
Updated: 2021-03-05
Packaged: 2021-03-18 22:06:46
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29864739
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MoonPieDumpling/pseuds/MoonPieDumpling
Summary: Regarding the arrival of a secret jinchuriki to the Village Hidden in the Leaves!
Relationships: Rokubi | Six-tails | Saiken & Utakata
Kudos: 3





	Slug Love: The Hospital Incident!

He wasn’t aware of it when the day began, but it would be one of the strangest days Utakata would ever experience. And that was saying something for someone who had once involuntarily turned into a giant slug and eaten a man. 

The day had started off badly. A group of hunter-nin had stumbled across him in the forests of the Land of Fire while he was sleeping, allowing them to get close enough to sense his chakra before he sensed theirs. He had managed to escape them by running deeper into the forests, forcing them to drop back or risk running into some Leaf shinobi who would not take their presence particularly well, but in the rush he’d left his supplies behind. 

Just as soon as that hassle had been avoided, Utakata had found himself practically tripping into a small group of bandits. Nothing he couldn’t handle, of course, but one of the bandits attempted to use some sort of Flying Thunder God ripoff. The bandit had ended up smashing himself into a rock, but it had been enough to score a hit which would have been much more serious on someone who wasn’t basically a living chakra battery like Utakata himself. It did, however, allow the rest of the gang to arrive and take advantage of the wound in his chest. 

By the time that debacle was over, he was quite battered, enough that even with Saiken’s help it would take a while to heal. The grass beneath him was quite comfortable, and at that point in time he hardly could have gotten up himself in any case. After some unknown amount of time, a team of three Konoha nin had come across the barely conscious jinchuuriki. 

“What happened to you?” drawled the bandana wearing shinobi, twirling a senbon around his mouth and raising a questioning eyebrow. 

“What does it look like?” grumbled Utakata, “Bandits. You Leaf nin should keep your woods a bit cleaner.” He wasn’t particularly concerned at the moment. He’d made it far enough from the bandits that the Leaf nin most likely wouldn’t find them, or more importantly the bubbling puddles of acid they’d been reduced to, before he was gone. Even if the hunters looped back, there was no way they’d approach the Leaf shinobi this deeply into the Land of Fire unannounced.

“You look like you need a doctor,” purred the kunoichi in the group, not quite looking at the wounds but looking just the same. That would be a problem. Saiken’s seal would almost certainly be discovered if he was taken to a doctor and he’d most likely either be imprisoned in Konoha, or sent back to Kiri, or imprisoned and held hostage until Kiri took him back. That he could not allow. 

“Seeing how you handle security makes me wary of putting my faith in your medics.” Utakata may have been too exhausted to stand but never let it be said he had lost his sharp tongue. The kunoichi smirked down at him in a manner which seemed fairly predatory. 

“You don’t like how we administer our forest don’t come to our forest,” snorted senbon-mouth, hiding mild concern behind dry indifference as he studied the damage on Utakata’s body. The third teammate, all in green, was likewise studying Utakata with a serious look on his face, which seemed out of place on him. The six-tailed jinchuuriki had picked up a sense for people who were loud and annoying over the years, and this man certainly seemed the type. Had he figured something out about Utakata? 

Senbon-mouth glanced at his male teammate, looking somewhat more concerned, and even the kunoichi was momentarily distracted from Utakata’s… wounds. Noticing his teammates’ eyes, the third shinobi suddenly seemed all movement and bright smiles. 

“I assure you, shinobi-san,” at this Utakata winced. Had he been in such a state that he’d failed to disguise his chakra? “Konoha’s medics are beyond compare and most Youthful in their outlooks. You will receive only the best care. It would not be very Youthful of us to leave such an injured guest alone in the forest, unable to even walk, don’t you agree Genma-kun? We must assist him!” There was the annoyance, right there. 

“Gai’s right,” agreed the kunoichi, “We can’t just leave an injured man out here. We have a reputation to keep. Have a heart, Genma.” From the look of it, reputation was not her main concern at the moment. Utakata and the shinobi, apparently named Genma, winced. Utakata from a stab of pain in his chest, and Genma from the long-suffering agony caused by the beaming smiles both his teammates were sending him. Honestly, it was like they were asking to take home a puppy they had found, not a mysterious, possibly dying ninja found trespassing on their land. 

Utakata lay still and watched them, attempting to discern what the team leader’s decision would be. The man in question tilted his head a bit, as if he was listening for something. After a moment, he slumped. 

Genma spat out his senbon and sighed. “Fine. We’ll drag him back. But we need to hurry. We do have a patrol to finish.” Utakata jerked back and then gasped from the resulting pain when both the one in green and the kunoichi eagerly took a step forward. Luckily Genma lunged forward, near panic. “No! I’ll carry him back.” The green one, Gai, if Utakata remembered correctly, looked crestfallen, and the kunoichi pouted. 

“I get why Gai can’t carry him back, but why can’t I?” Genma narrowed his eyes at her as he bent down and lifted up Utakata, ignoring the jinchuuriki’s protests. 

“You know why Anko.” The kunoichi stuck her tongue out at her teammate, and then they were in the trees and moving at sickening speed towards Konohagakure. 

All too suddenly they landed at the gates of the village, no doubt to check their patient in. At the guard post two sentries chatted with a huge redhead who Utakata placed as one of Konoha’s Akimichi. 

“Weren’t you going on patrol?” one of the guards questioned at the same time the Akimichi called a greeting. Utakata could only watch in dull confusion as the green one entered into a very loud conversation with one of the guards and the Akimichi, the former of which looked like he was going deaf and the latter of which was nodding along and even responding to the loud declarations intersped by YOUTH! The other bandaged guard and the kunoichi had somehow, in mere moments, entered an argument. 

Utakata could feel the beginnings of a headache forming. Even Saiken, who despite the stories Utakata knew to be a generally patient and calm beast, was becoming somewhat stressed by the situation. He could feel the pulses of Tailed Beast chakra just a half second behind his own become more staccato. Both of them wanted to get away quickly, but Saiken not only couldn’t heal him faster, but had needed to slow down the process a bit to avoid making his healing speed too startling. 

If they were suspected or found out, using any of Saiken’s powers would lead to Leaf hunters after him as well as Mist. The Leaf was more paranoid about the beasts than the other villages as a result of the Kyuubi attack. If they thought that the Mist had sent a jinchuuriki to infiltrate their village, that could mean war. Utakata may not have any particular liking for either side at the moment, but he could remember the last war and had no wish to be the cause of anything even remotely similar. 

Utakata’s ride had patiently waited about a minute to be acknowledged. Around the time that a python had been introduced as Anko’s debate partner, sending the guard reeling back in his seat with a squawk, Genma gave up and entered the gate. 

“Dinner next week, don’t forget!” the Akimichi boomed as they passed him and headed into the village. 

The shout notified Anko that her prey was escaping, and she bounded after them with loud complaints. Her python, who’d been quite close to biting the guard’s nose off, disappeared with a puff of disappointed smoke and a relieved gasp from the guard. Travel went even faster moving across the rooftops of the city. Landing on the roof of what was probably the hospital, Utakata had a moment to observe and wonder at their strangely warped water tanks before they dropped down at the hospital entrance and walked in. 

The hospital in the Hidden Mist had been quiet and solemn. People only went there if they were on the verge of death. Anything less would probably have been overlooked. At least that had been how it was when he’d lived there. It had been a while. In any case, he doubted that Hidden Mist’s hospital would ever reach this level of liveliness. They had decorum in Water Country. The Will of Fire apparently was shorthand for being overly attached and insane. The entry hall to the hospital was full of people chattering, families coming in to see loved ones, children complaining about having to receive shots, and a pair of ponytailed blondes with a pushcart of flowers that they appeared to be selling to those around them. The only things needed to make this scene more like a carnival was a clown and a bake sale. 

Alright, perhaps he was exaggerating a bit, but Konoha was known to be much more vivacious than Kiri, and it had been so long since Utakata had spent much time with anyone that even the more muted Kiri would have been a lot to take in nowadays. As soon as the three shinobi entered a pretty young woman with short black hair hurried over to question them. Utakata was far too overwhelmed at this point by the pain and the overstimulation to be paying much attention to anything going on around him.

He was brought over to the center of the room, where a clump of people appeared to be having a discussion. Utakata forced himself to snap back to attention when he realized who they were approaching. Tsunade Senju was currently telling off a nurse who had in some way displeased her. This was bad. If Tsunade was the one who worked on him, she’d most likely figure out precisely what he was, and without accessing Saiken’s more recognizable abilities, he was doubtful of his ability to evade her, much less defeat her. Next to the annoyed blonde slouched a wiry, silvery haired shinobi who looked utterly relaxed and rather bored, cleverly concealing the sharp mind behind the mask. A man after Utakata’s own heart, but also an even larger problem than the Hokage at the moment. 

Utakata had always made certain to keep on top of people who could possibly be a danger to his wandering lifestyle. He knew about hunter-nin from all the villages, but this particular ninja he hadn’t even needed to study up on. The Copycat Ninja was famous, considered one of the greatest trackers and assassins in the Great Nations. The man was feared in Kiri, had had a death warrant and bounty on his head in the bingo book there since the age of fourteen after he’d managed to single handedly slaughter six teams of hunter-nin into a pool of blood while injured and running low on chakra. He was rumored to have even killed a jinchuuriki in his childhood, but that was myth and tall tale and one couldn’t say for certain whether that was true or not. 

Utakata wasn’t sure about the reality of it, but it wasn’t impossible. The whereabouts and identities of the hosts were kept close secret. Utakata hadn’t even met the person who’d been the Turtle’s host when he’d lived in Mist. And it wasn’t like the jinchuuriki were invulnerable. Utakata had learned long ago not to rule things out on likelihood alone, so that marked Hatake even higher on the potential threat list.

There wasn’t much he could do, however. The burst of adrenaline which he’d received after being found was fading out fast. Even Saiken’s nervous insistence, felt instead of heard, wasn’t enough to keep him present. As his eyes began to shut, he felt that maybe he’d been asleep the entire time, because he could have sworn he saw a giant glob of toothpaste oozing on the team leader’s shoulder. Saiken’s nudges paused, then changed from prodding him forward to rather strongly pushing him aside. 

Utakata momentarily struggled, instinctively disliking involuntarily giving up control. He remembered the last time he’d been pushed aside in his own head, and didn’t want a repeat of the person eating incident. Wasn’t Saiken just warning him against revealing the seal to the Leaf? Actually becoming a Tailed Beast was somewhat more incriminating than a holding seal. But it only lasted a minute because he was tired, and not in much of a state to say no anyway. After a precarious moment where two consciences balanced on the brink, feeling everything together, they fell apart. Saiken into the world of sound and color and Utakata into the abyss of unconsciousness.

**Author's Note:**

> If you didn't catch the implication the slaughter attributed to Kakashi by Kiri was when Rin died, so it was mostly not Kakashi, at least not the most brutal parts. He likely still would have gotten the bounty and death warrant regardless, between other missions and Obito being a petty little brat. 
> 
> Usually I'd want to have a piece complete before posting, but I finished a bit more than this much literal years ago and then kinda lost interest in Naruto so I haven't had the inspiration to finish. I do like what I have though, so I figured maybe if people like it I'll get the umph to complete it. Honestly I didn't even get to the part of this fic which inspired the creation of the fic, so I do want to get there because I still find the concept amusing.


End file.
